Sit back and listen to a story about Trevor Jacob, an Olympian and member of Nitro Circus, and how he crashed his plane for the Youtube likes! This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 2 Ep 4-4: YouTuber Olympian Trevor Jacob Crashes His Plane For The Likes – Act 4: The Cover Up.
This is act 4. If you would like the background, the previous acts were:
A Plane Crash For The Likes! – Act 1: Nice Day For A Flight
A Plane Crash For The Likes! – Act 2: Engine’s Out!
A Plane Crash For The Likes! – Act 3: The Investigations
Sources:
Transcript:
00:00:10:00 – 00:00:33:21
Keith
Hey, welcome back to eCrimeBytes. This is season two, episode four, and now we’re in the concluding act, the cover up. And this is about the YouTuber, Trevor Jacob, not just YouTuber. He’s a YouTuber. He is an Olympian, he’s a nitro circus performer and probably other the things I don’t even know about and I forgot. It’s not his snowboards.
00:00:33:21 – 00:00:52:02
Keith
That’s why he did it in the Olympics back in 2014. Well, to make to catch you up, if you haven’t joined us for the prior three acts, which I recommend you do, because there’s a lot of great background in there. And we show you the video of this plane accident.
00:00:52:02 – 00:00:54:03
Keith
What happened was he went up in the air.
00:00:54:09 – 00:01:13:04
Keith
He was going to spread his friend’s ashes. Supposedly he lost power and with almost no thought I’d say no more than maybe 2 minutes worth of thought, jumps out of his damn plane with a parachute on and watches this plane spiral into mountains in California, just outside of Santa Barbara in Los Angeles.
00:01:13:04 – 00:01:16:26
Keith
In the last act, the NTSB, which is the
00:01:16:26 – 00:01:23:09
Keith
National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA got involved with the investigation.
00:01:23:09 – 00:01:26:26
Keith
And even if you don’t care what those mean, just know that
00:01:26:26 – 00:01:46:16
Keith
two federal agencies are investigating Trevor Jacob now, which is when it’s federal, it’s it’s a very bad thing. So in act four the concluding act here. We’re going to talk about the cover up. So Trevor Jacob’s being investigated. He doesn’t want to be investigated.
00:01:46:19 – 00:02:08:07
Keith
So what would you do, Seth, if you if you just crashed your plane? Because supposedly the power cuts out and then you had the forethought, you were just wise enough to have the parachute on because you were flying over mountains and you just happen to have it, you jumped out and saved your life. What would be your next act if you’re being investigated?
00:02:08:07 – 00:02:21:26
Keith
Would it be to hire a helicopter company and then ask them to fly the wreckage to another airport? I would say probably not. Right?
00:02:21:26 – 00:02:40:28
Seth
It wouldn’t even be on my radar. I was going to say, you know, you come clean, explained that you were doing a stunt and you failed to file the required paperwork or request for permission to do such a thing and just come clean, in which case I would just fine him. I don’t know where that coming from criminally because nobody was hurt.
00:02:41:01 – 00:02:55:18
Seth
But I would not have tried to remove the fucking evidence of an airplane by hiring and leaving a paper trail thus of another company to remove it. I wouldn’t have gone that direction. But you know what? I got to walk with you there.
00:02:55:21 – 00:03:10:19
Keith
I got to walk you through this scenario. This is just amazing. And I, in a morbid way, I kind of wish I could have seen it go down. So basically, Jacob asked the owner of a helicopter company if he would help him retrieve his plane.
00:03:10:19 – 00:03:11:10
Keith
So
00:03:11:10 – 00:03:18:19
Keith
the guy said yes. And I imagine he probably became an a cooperating witness at some point.
00:03:18:21 – 00:03:45:02
Keith
But Jacob and a friend both drove trucks to the airport. Okay. Then they got in the helicopter. They flew to the wreckage site. They picked up the wreckage with straps and then they returned to the airport with it. Now, you have to imagine this. Now, if you joined us for the video and you saw the video of the wreckage, it’s on kind of the side of a hill.
00:03:45:04 – 00:04:12:19
Keith
So I can’t imagine the helicopter is going to have a real easy time trying to land close to the plane so they could strap it up and all that other stuff. This had to be a pretty coordinated effort. And then once whatever they did to get this, in my opinion, still pretty intact airplane up in the air, I would think it would still look like an airplane unless they took Sawzalls and like chopped it up into smaller pieces that they could like bag it up or something, but it would look like an airplane.
00:04:12:20 – 00:04:14:20
Seth
When it actually happens. That’s not till later.
00:04:14:20 – 00:04:34:28
Keith
Okay, let me show you this. Which is a map. The red arrow is the approximate crash site. Just that mountain range area. There is where I think this happened. The green is where he took off from. So that’s the the Lompoc Airport, which is the Santa Barbara area.
00:04:35:01 – 00:04:41:00
Keith
The blue is the airport where the helicopter is. So what happened was
00:04:41:00 – 00:05:01:16
Keith
they rented the helicopter and flew from the blue arrow over to the red arrow, picked up the airplane and then flew it suspended under that helicopter back to the blue airport. So those that blue in the green, those are two airports. So they’re pretty close to each other.
00:05:01:16 – 00:05:07:02
Seth
All right. So now we’re in December 10th of 2021.
00:05:07:04 – 00:05:08:04
Keith
Same day.
00:05:08:07 – 00:05:28:03
Seth
Same day of the helicopter rescue of the crash plane. And now our hero returns back to Lompoc City Airport. So Jacob and his friend drove the trucks back to Lompoc City Airport and they unloaded the wreckage into Jacob’s own hangar. I guess he rents out a hangar to put his now deceased plane now inside the. What’s that?
00:05:28:03 – 00:05:38:24
Keith
Lompoc is the Green Arrow on your chart right now. That’s so they’re going from the blue arrow to the Green Arrow. And that’s why I’m leaving it on your screen, too. Kind of visualize what’s going on here now.
00:05:38:24 – 00:06:16:08
Seth
So we’re clear. He’s under federal investigation from two different agencies. So your best case scenario, other than messing with evidence on site, would be to at least leave the wreckage as it is, Right? Right. No, no, no, no. He and his buddy then decide to cut up the airplane into small pieces and they dump the pieces in the airport’s trash and elsewhere and it’s kind of like, first of all, if you why would you do that if you’re going to cut it up, maybe to hide the evidence, you wouldn’t dump the evidence directly on site.
00:06:16:08 – 00:06:34:20
Seth
So either they did not have ulterior motives, they just had a motive to put the airplane into smaller pieces and throw some of it out. Or they’re the world’s dumbest criminals ever. I don’t know. It’s one or the other. We had some logistics questions. We were kind of thinking out loud is did they dump did they cut the air?
00:06:34:25 – 00:06:51:27
Seth
sorry the engine block in half engine blocks generally are very solid pieces of metal that are very heavy. I don’t think a solid is cut there unless you have like one of those laser saws. And did anybody notice that there are people carrying around pieces of a fucking airplane and dumping it in the garbage? I might have noticed it.
00:06:51:27 – 00:06:57:01
Seth
I would have been like, Hey, what are you doing? But what do I know? I’m not in Nitro Circus.
00:06:57:01 – 00:06:58:24
Keith
12 days later.
00:06:58:26 – 00:07:13:12
Seth
So 12 days later, Trevor then uploads video of the airplane crash to YouTube. So the original had a brief moment at the beginning where Trevor Jacob thanked Ridge Wallet. Those are kind of those, you know,
00:07:13:12 – 00:07:28:07
Seth
specific wallets that you know I guess reject a radio waves sportsman. Yeah and I know it’s a famous fairly famous brand so he flashed a wallet before jumping into the plane as he crashed and that sponsorship had been removed.
00:07:28:07 – 00:07:33:12
Seth
But the rest of the video remains on YouTube and that’s how we were able to show you the relevant clips.
00:07:33:12 – 00:07:51:07
Seth
So now we’re into the new year. It’s January 3rd of 2022, and the NTSB again emails Trevor Jacob and they ask for again, hey, what are the GPS coordinates of the wreckage? And the next day Jacob responded, saying he didn’t know the plane’s location.
00:07:51:10 – 00:08:11:29
Seth
So that’s problematic because it’s like several lies built into it right there, asking for coordinates to the wreckage, which you could have provided, but the wreckage would have been technically in 75 different places, given that it was cut up and moved. And of course, he knew the location, the plane. He flew to it in the helicopter and strapped a helicopter strapped to it.
00:08:12:01 – 00:08:17:19
Seth
So that’s a major, major problem for him because he directly lied to the NTSB.
00:08:17:22 – 00:08:41:06
Keith
And it’s so, so much later, like it’s a month plus from the accident and it’s January the next year or so and saying, where’s the wreckage site? And he’s like, I don’t know. I mean, he’s he’s strung them along for so long, you would think the NTSB would have said, like a month ago, hey, F this you know, we got to figure this out now right.
00:08:41:08 – 00:08:50:08
Seth
So now we flash forward all the way to the spring or April of 2022. And now the FAA takes his pilot license, quote,
00:08:50:08 – 00:09:00:18
Seth
During this flight, you open the left side pilot door before you claim the engine had failed. The FAA. How do they know this? There’s a video of it before jumping out of the plane.
00:09:00:18 – 00:09:21:19
Seth
The agency said Mr. Jacob made no attempt to contact air traffic on the emergency frequency, did not try to restart the engine by increasing airflow over the prop and failed to look for a place to safely land, even though there were multiple areas within gliding range in which you could have made a safe landing. Jones It’s almost like you crashed the plane on purpose.
00:09:21:21 – 00:09:23:16
Keith
Almost, right?
00:09:23:18 – 00:09:43:19
Seth
So they continue on. They claim that Jacob filmed himself mailing in his pilot’s license, wearing a shirt that stated in bold black letters Always wear your parachute. As Jacob traveled to the post office, he said, quote, The aviation community has been pretty tough on me. So I’m thinking about quitting altogether and giving up because I’m just hated.
00:09:43:19 – 00:09:46:03
Seth
So now we flash forward a couple of months.
00:09:46:03 – 00:10:08:04
Seth
Now we’re sorry, one month rather. Now we’re in May, May 10th of 2023. Sorry if I were a year now. I’m sorry. Big jump in time. Yes, over a year has passed. And clearly he was boxed into a proverbial legal corner because he pleads guilty. He pled guilty to US Code five 1519, destruction and concealment of a tangible object with intent to obstruct federal investigation.
00:10:08:08 – 00:10:29:17
Seth
That’s a very specific charge. So clearly, there was a lot of stuff thrown. I’m assuming that he was arrested. We don’t have all the details here. We have to assume that he was arrested. We have to assume he had to get a lawyer. We had to assume his lawyer said, you are so fucked here. There’s very little you can do other than hope that they are lenient and maybe copping a plea, which is clearly what happened, because we’ve identified several additional crimes.
00:10:29:17 – 00:11:03:23
Seth
Right. There’s definitely some criminal behavior relating to violations of FAA and NTSB lying to authorities. I’m sure there was several other charges that could have been levied. I guess they all incorporated into taking a fairly lenient single charge. And we also understand that based upon his his plea guilty plea deal, that if he is in prison, depending on what the judge says, no, no more than 24 months, he cannot ever appeal it, which means if he’s doing two years, he’s got to do two years.
00:11:03:23 – 00:11:04:23
Seth
He doesn’t get to appeal it.
00:11:04:23 – 00:11:23:17
Keith
So then you wonder, after all this has happened, he’s pled guilty. What has happened to Trevor Jacob’s YouTube channel? And so I put a screenshot of it up here for you. Let me see if I have a slide. I do.
00:11:23:17 – 00:11:24:24
Keith
And believe it or not,
00:11:24:24 – 00:11:34:13
Keith
this is the video that I cut up and showed you the relevant chunks of this video’s at 4.3 million views.
00:11:34:15 – 00:11:51:23
Keith
It was republished I guess a year ago. He has 142,000 subscribers and there’s over 21,000 comments on this video alone. There’s 43,000 likes. On this video alone. So
00:11:51:23 – 00:12:05:03
Keith
kind of interesting. I was I was kind of shocked. The video is still out there after he was allowed to plead guilty. So we’ll see if it’s still out there. And by the time he gets sentencing, because now we just wait for sentencing.
00:12:05:06 – 00:12:21:12
Keith
This is where we are in the case. And this case had everything was developed except for what he got as a sentence. And I was like, we need to do this one because we could just update it later with the sentence because there’s so much information about the videos and so forth. So
00:12:21:12 – 00:12:26:12
Keith
this is the point where where we just give you Seth’s and my few concluding thoughts before we take you out.
00:12:26:12 – 00:12:28:00
Keith
So why don’t you take the first couple thoughts?
00:12:28:00 – 00:12:49:25
Seth
Seth So what do we learn here? There were, as I just mentioned, many, many more crimes here than he was charged with, right? He was basically charged with the cover up, but they neglected to charge him for, I’m sure, failing to file, you know, a flight path or, you know, or filing a fraudulent flight path. I’m assuming he didn’t say in his flight plan
00:12:50:02 – 00:13:09:24
Seth
Hey, I’m going to crash the plane somewhere here. So that’s probably problematic. He lied to not one, but two different authorities. I mean, there’s, you know, probably a dozen crimes that could have been tacked on. The government is really good about tacking these things on. So clearly, that was all a plea agreement here. We also understood the cover up could be a maximum 20 year sentence.
00:13:09:27 – 00:13:26:06
Seth
But since he pled guilty and I’m assuming it’s the first time offense for him will probably be, you know, somewhere in the 18 month or two year range. Now, I wouldn’t be ruling out Jones that there are some civil claims that could be added as well. I don’t know. I mean, the problem is there’s really no victim here.
00:13:26:06 – 00:13:33:19
Seth
If he paid for the his own cleanup, I’m not really sure there’s anything civilly to go after him for, but it’s to be determined.
00:13:33:19 – 00:14:02:03
Keith
All right, so the two thoughts that I had at the end of this was the first was this video alone received millions of views. So even if you say he already had all those subscribers and people just came from there for the video, never, never subscribed to his channel, that’s still a lot of views for one video. And you think about that and you say, well, even though he pled guilty, isn’t he kind of continuing to gain from this?
00:14:02:03 – 00:14:31:04
Keith
Because even if YouTube says you can’t monetize or make money off of this, this too, this video that you put out there of your plane crash, people are still coming to his channel to see it. And then as a result, there’s going to be X amount of the population that will then subscribe to him and it will contribute at some point to what he’s able to make off of places like YouTube.
00:14:31:06 – 00:14:57:11
Keith
And then I as I’m thinking down this line, I’m thinking, I wonder if whatever sentence he gets will be worth it. You know, will it be worth two years for, say, 4 million views on this thing and say, I don’t know, 50,000 signups or 50,000 subscriptions? I don’t know. I can’t answer that. Seems like no time would be the best route in life, but that’s just me.
00:14:57:13 – 00:15:32:22
Keith
And then I, as I’m finishing out this thought, even if somehow YouTube says, okay, he cannot profit from this video, wouldn’t YouTube still be profiting because they’re probably running ads to a substantial portion of the people that come there every couple of minutes and they’re making money off of it. So it seems like that video, if it’s not down, you know, I know people are going to watch this in the future and I expect that that video is probably not going to be online super long, especially after his sentence.
00:15:32:22 – 00:15:50:03
Keith
So if you ever want to watch it, you probably want to jump online. We got the link in our sources. And you know, if you want to watch a video version of it, we cut out the relevant portions of of it in this episode. So with that, how to reach us, there is a website that we put together.
00:15:50:08 – 00:16:05:17
Keith
It’s e crime bytes, e, c, r i, m e b y as in yellow milk t e s dot com. And that’s got everything. So if you can’t remember anything else, go to that website because on your phone
00:16:05:17 – 00:16:18:19
Keith
there’s this three little horizontal line button. If you click that it has all our social media accounts, it has a glossary, it has our newsletters, just everything, everything that you would need.
00:16:18:21 – 00:16:27:29
Keith
And if you’re on your desktop, you’re not going to see that three little lines. You’re just going to have that menu all across the top on your web browser and it’ll be one click less for you.
00:16:27:29 – 00:16:38:20
Keith
So what can you do if you’re on, let’s say, YouTube, please like and subscribe. So like this video, subscribe to the channel.
00:16:38:22 – 00:17:04:18
Keith
If you’re on places like a audio podcasting app, please like us or whatever the equivalent of a like is there, but definitely subscribe. So that way you know about the new episodes that we have coming out and specifically Apple podcast. If you’re on Apple, which is about half of our audio listeners, please give us a five star review there because that’s how other new Apple users find us.
00:17:04:21 – 00:17:08:13
Keith
It’s in the number of reviews, from what I understand.
00:17:08:13 – 00:17:29:03
Keith
And then if you’re on any of the other social media like Twitter slash X or LinkedIn or Facebook, any of those, if you see our videos there, please like them. And if you think there’s anybody that would enjoy them, please share it with them, because we’re not going to go out there and buy a ton of ads to talk about our podcast.
00:17:29:03 – 00:17:54:06
Keith
This is a hobby thing for Seth and I, and the only way we’re probably going to get bigger is if our audience shares this with other audience members or people find us in Google. So we appreciate any word that you can spread. And with that, I enjoyed this case. Did you have any more of a summary or parting thoughts or anything you’d like to leave with this case?
00:17:54:06 – 00:18:14:07
Seth
Seth No, I mean, I think we just we started with this really, which was just yeah, I think obviously it’s fun to make fun of the guy and, you know, the clearly, you know, people who jump into an airplane with a parachute on who are not doing aeronautics are clearly looking just to crash a fucking plane, video it and then claim he doesn’t know what he was doing.
00:18:14:10 – 00:18:34:19
Seth
But I do think it kind of talks or points out a broader problem with social media right now, which is anybody who’s a star and anybody who’s want to do something outrageous, you know, can get views and likes and make a living out of it, which I don’t condemn. Good for you. Social media influencer is an influencer. Influencer-ing is a real thing.
00:18:34:22 – 00:18:50:22
Seth
I know some people who do it and I tip my hat to them. I mean, if we can make a living doing this, we would. But when you’re doing stuff that’s outrageous and it violates the law and puts people at risk, that’s where it gets a little bit. Not only like eyebrow raising, but I find it offensive, right?
00:18:50:22 – 00:18:52:26
Seth
I mean, follow the law. It’s not that hard.
00:18:52:26 – 00:19:02:03
Seth
And by the way, I’m pretty sure he could have pulled this off. He could have probably call the local L.A. County and, you know, and file like, hey, I’m going to do a stunt and this is how we’re going to do it and we want to make sure it’s safe.
00:19:02:03 – 00:19:07:12
Seth
And I’m sure it would have involved a lot more paperwork, but it still could have gotten to where he wants to be without being a criminal.
00:19:07:12 – 00:19:25:17
Keith
Yeah, it was a fun case. It was one of those that, like the Jimmy Zhong case that I sat on for so long and I just couldn’t wait to finally present to you. So here it is. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, because every document I read out was like, what? And it it I hope it lived up to it.
00:19:25:23 – 00:20:01:13
Keith
So with that, I hope you come back next week because next week I picked a special, special case just for Seth, because we talked about in our previous season, we talked about the different professions that we’ve chosen that electronic crime had been in, and we talked about police officers, we’ve talked about accountants and so forth. And there’s one profession that I’ve left out that I have the perfect case for next week, and it’s a lawyer who spies on his former firm.
00:20:01:15 – 00:20:22:26
Keith
And I pick this one specially for you, Seth. And it isn’t a criminal case. It’s actually a like a what do you call it? Like an attorney reprimand case, which still has some court documents to it. And I was able to pull it and get the technical details and how he did it, what the victim saw and all that kind of great stuff that we’ll put into a nice little story and present to you next week.
00:20:23:02 – 00:20:26:25
Keith
So I hope you come back and join us on that one. Thanks. Bye.
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